Food. Filipino Food.

Travel

June 29, 2008

The Wife and I began our 2-week trip to the Philippines with a 4-day stay on beautiful Boracay Island. Prior to this trip, I had visited the Philippines twice but had never been to Boracay, and my wife had never been to the Philippines at all. So I figured a few days of sun and sand at a beach resort would be a great start to our vacation.

With its powdery white sand and warm blue waters, Boracay is as close to paradise as it gets. But aside from the main beachfront drag known as, what else, White Beach, there are plenty other activities to keep one occupied on Boracay: sailing, scuba diving, snorkeling, parasailing, island hopping, girl ogling people watching, shopping, drinking, eating, eating, and eating.

Luckily for the wife and I, two of my cousins stayed at a nearby resort and accompanied us for our first two days in Boracay. I say luckily because we enjoyed the company of my cousins (of course), but also because my cousins were quite adept in the fine art of haggling with the many hawkers and vendors roaming the white sands of Boracay. If it weren't for my lovely cousins, I think I would have paid a jillion pesos and my yet-to-exist first-born child in exchange for a souvenir Boracay T-shirt. But thanks to the bargaining prowess of my cousins, I only had to pay 150 pesos for the shirt (whew!).

June 05, 2008

The Wife and I are literally on our way out the door to go on our vacation. We are heading to The Pearl of the Orient (or The Land of A Thousand Islands, or The Land of the Morning Sun), where we are sure to enjoy some sun, probably some rain, and definitely some delicious home-cooked meals. I will be attempting to post from the road, but we'll see how that goes...

September 09, 2007

Pasalubong is a Tagalog word that generally refers to gifts and souvenirs one gives out upon arriving/returning to/from another place. More specifically, and perhaps more appreciated, is Pasalubong of various food items from wherever you traveled.

Luckily for me, one of my many cousins from the Philippines is visiting the States for the very first time and she arrived at my parents' house bearing many food gifts. Although it's been a few years since I saw my cousin when I last traveled to the 'Peens, our conversation upon her recent arrival went something like this:

Me: Hey cuz! Nice to see you again! How was your trip!

Cuz: Hi! The plane ride was very long and...

Me: Hey that's great, what's that you got there? Looks like you brought some goodies!

Family relations are not my strong suit.

But I do like to eat! And I'm sure my cousin understood my curtness with her as she happily opened up her luggage and extracted what seemed to be a never-ending stream of Filipino eats. Don't worry, we eventually had a civil conversation as soon as I stuffed my face with some of the sweets she brought. And besides, she's going to be here for a month, there's plenty of time for us to catch up and for me to corrupt her sensible Pinoy tastebuds with the zany, bastardizedconcoctions I've created.

Until then, here's a rundown of the Pasalubong I was able to steal given from my parents:

August 12, 2007

Last month, in an excruciatingly long post about my travels in Italy, I made small mention of Ristoro Terra Terra--a little restaurant in Florence that my wife and I happily stumbled upon. Although the food at Terra Terra was spectacular, it was not the only thing from this restaurant that left a lasting impression on us.

Our waiter at Terra Terra was a sight to behold. Don't get me wrong, the service he provided was excellent as he made spot-on recommendations for our wine and food. But we also found delight in certain eccentricities displayed by our server. Here is what I previously wrote about him in the old blog post I mentioned earlier:

"At Terra Terra, a little restaurant that was literally around the corner from the famed Duomo,
we were greeted by a gentleman dressed in black baggy jeans, a black
t-shirt, dark hair pulled into a pony tail, and a goatee. He pretty
much looked like a non-threatening Satan. He spoke very good English
and had a gruff voice that was a cross between Cobra Commander,
Antonio Banderas, and Count Dracula. When he wasn’t serving guests he
was either outside smoking (five cigarettes by my wife’s count) or
behind the bar downing a glass of cold white wine (three glasses by my
count). An all-around cool dude if you ask me. Seriously."

There was so much more that I wanted to write about our waiter at Terra Terra, I just didn't because I didn't have the pictures to back up my outlandish descriptions. Until now...

August 02, 2007

The Wife and I were up in the Bay (or as the young’uns like to call it—The Yay) last weekend visiting my little brother and his girlfriend. Although I’ve visited my little brother a couple of times before in the Yay, most of my time visiting was spent on drunken shenanigans, horseplay, and tomfoolery (and bob and johnfoolery for that matter). With this most recent (and more mature) visit, I wanted to eat more and imbibe less. And because my little bro and his girlfriend are such good dining companions (they don’t scoff or turn their noses up at anything), the task of finding good food would be easy.

July 11, 2007

After a lovely stay in Nice, The Wife and I hopped on another train and began our journey into Italy—Venice for two nights, Florence for one night, and ending in Rome with four nights. Since our stays in Venice and Florence were short, I decided I’d lump in a recap of those cities together with Rome.

July 04, 2007

After a six-hour train ride from Paris to the Cote d'Azur, we were more than happy to switch from walking shoes to flip-flops upon our arrival to Nice. Although rocky rather than sandy, the beach at Nice was a beautiful sight indeed with clear skies, azure waters, and topless women.

(Whistles!)

Not that I noticed (wink-wink). As we walked the Promenade de Anglais (Nice's main beachfront thoroughfare), my wife mentioned to me that there were women on the beach sans tops. Of course, that bit of information barely registered on my brain because I was daydreaming about, uh, um, local delicacies. I mean food. My thoughts were on food of course (tee-hee). And so, after the long train ride, we resolved to to immediately get some food in our bellies and to return to the beach for some ogling sun the following day.

Alright folks, after stumbling around my office at work like a one-legged zombie for the last the week, and sleeping away most of this past weekend, I think I’ve finally shaken my jet-induced lag (i.e. laziness) and have enough wherewithal to put together a semi-coherent post about the food sampled during my recent vacation in Europe. (That was a super-long sentence. And I used the word “wherewithal.” Maybe I need another nap.)

Anyhoo, I was initially going to write one huge super post of all my stops in Europe (Paris, Nice, Venice, Florence, and Rome), but I figured it would probably be best that I break this up into separate, city-by-city, posts. So, we begin with the City of Lights.

The Wife and I began our trip with four nights in Paris. As I soon found out, sticking to Anthony Bourdain’s mantra of “Be a traveler, not a tourist” is a hard principal to practice – especially when visiting a city, with as rich a food culture as Paris has, for the very first time. That’s not to say that The Wife and I only ate at tourist-trap eateries (a couple maybe), but before going on this trip I had delusions of grandeur and imagined that we’d be eating duck confit, foie gras, and truffles every single night. Of course, Paris has much more to offer than those items I just mentioned, and of course, I don’t have the $cratch to eat like that every night anyways.

Rather than bore you with the details of every single thing I ate in Paris, I’ll only bore you with the highlights – food that my wife and I truly enjoyed stuffing into our faces. I must warn (and apologize to) you in advance though, this is a very long post.

June 24, 2007

The Wife and I have returned home tonight/this morning/whatever from our European vacation. Needless to say, we are pooped. Pooped I say!

We had a wonderful time these past two weeks, and I will post about our food adventures later. I just have to figure out a way to do a recap without boring everyone to death. There are stories of baguette-jacking, failed attempts at Orangina smuggling, cockroaches in shirt pockets, and a couple's downward spiral into gelato addiction. Fun times!

Also, while I was gone my yearning for Super Powers and Indian Mangoes was featured over at Serious Eats, where Adam Kuban had some kind words about my post. So that was cool. I guess I have a bit of "The Glow" after all;)